OSHA’s vaccination requirements for large businesses a week away 

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The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is expected to release its new rule requiring businesses with over 100 employees to require their workers to be fully vaccinated or mandate weekly COVID-19 tests next week.

The Biden Administration announced the new requirements last week but details on what the mandate will look like when enacted have been light. In its announcement, the administration said that OSHA had two weeks to issue guidance on the mandate through an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS).

The ETS will require that all businesses with over 100 employees must mandate vaccinations for their staff or enforce weekly testing company wide. Companies that fail to comply with the mandate will face fines per employee.

In anticipation for OSHA’s rulemaking, companies should begin gathering information from their workforce about their vaccination status, said Morgan Hays, an associate attorney specialized in health care and labor and labor and employment litigation at Saxton & Stump.

Hays spoke during a Lancaster Chamber hosted “Ask an Attorney” webinar on Wednesday. During the webinar, Hays outlined what is currently known about the new OSHA rules and how that could change next week.

“We have another six or seven days before we can expect anything from OSHA at all and it’s unclear what we will get,” she said. “At this point the recommendation is to start gathering information from your workforce about vaccine status, about how many folks you have that are adamantly opposed to the vaccine and you want to be careful about how you acquire this information.”

Hays went on to say that companies should be careful not to single out a particular group of people when asking for this information.

Some of the details that are still unknown regarding the new rules include: if OSHA will require record keeping for tested employees, how it expects companies to pay for testing, if remote workers will be part of the same mandates and the amount of money businesses will be fined per non-compliant employee.

The new ETS will act as a supplement to OSHA’s previous ETS that it adopted in June. The ETS required facilities to conduct a hazard assessment, have a written plan to mitigate virus spread and provide employees with N95 respirators or other personal protective equipment.

“OSHA gives authority to set these standards,” said Hays. “They can take effect immediately to up to six months. At that point if the circumstances continue after that sixth month, a new ETS can be issued.”

Health care providers of all sizes will also be impacted by Biden’s plan through a vaccination requirement by the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services that impacts providers that receive either Medicare or Medicaid reimbursements.